The New York Times needs to get paid for the content they provide online, just like they do in print. Giving it away in exchange for page views and ad revenue doesn’t add up. Not only is it a money-losing proposition, it undercuts the value of the great reporters, experts, essayists and editors who make the Times unique. The dilemma for the Times is that by charging for online access they risk losing traffic, and ad dollars.

Whether or not Times readers would defect to the Huffington Post or cnn.com rather than pay for online access is debatable. But it seems highly likely that many readers would pay one subscription price for a broad package of content, as they do now for cable access. The problem is, who controls the pipe. Appointing isps as Web toll collectors wouldn’t offer sufficient value to justify the fees they’d undoubtedly want; while getting a group of premium content sites to band together would be like herding cats. The most promising bet looks like current portals. Yahoo! already offers branded Times articles. It could be a logical next step to make it a gatekeeper for online access to a bundle of content sites, including the Times.  Both logistics and economics seem closest to working here. In the near-term, look for the Times to simply do what it should have long ago and start charging for it’s site. But for the longer term, partnerships may be the real source of growth and prosperity not just for the Times, and thousands of smaller content sites as well.